10 Rock Albums That No One Was Asking For

As soon as the ‘00s ended, most of the nu metal heavyweights had to change pretty fast to stay relevant. The new stripe of nu metal like Hollywood Undead were beginning to make the genre a parody of itself, and it was up to the old guard to find a way forward, either breaking up like System of a Down or carrying on the tradition like Korn. Linkin Park took neither option though, and their reinvention on A Thousand Suns left more than a few fans puzzled.

Compared to the digitized sounds of their first few records, this record practically sounded like Linkin Park being fed through an AI software, putting together songs that were smothered in different electronic effects and more than a few overdubs that were nothing but a bunch of ambient noise to keep the album’s themes going. While this might not have been one of their most anticipated albums or anything, this might be the best album the band made since Meteora. Electing to take a risk, this entire record sounds like Linkin Park’s attempt at a statement record, putting out something that has the same size and scope as what you might hear out of someone like Radiohead or Pink Floyd, telling the story of nuclear fallout and the kind of horrors that the world will come to as a result.

There is still plenty of decent material on songs like Robot Boy and Waiting for the End…it’s just being fed through a much different lens this time around. The future of nu metal probably wasn’t going to look like this any time soon, but if you look at the turn that modern rock has taken in the past few years, A Thousand Suns was the progenitor of what the new school is doing right now.